Interview With THE HUNNA

Saturday, 11 June 2016

THE HUNNA are an alternative, indie, rock band from Watford, UK. the band is made up of Ryan Potter, AKA Valentino (vocals and guitar), Dan Dorney AKA Bandanna Dan (guitar), Jack Metcalfe AKA Insta King (drums) and Jermaine Angin AKA The Prince (bass). Recently the band have been touring the UK and are currently in America too performing some of their songs. Their first release 'Bonfire' is an ultimate hit, they've also brought out songs like 'She's Casual', 'You & Me' and 'We Could Be'. THE HUNNA have just recently announced and released their newest song 'Still Got Blood' from their debut album '100'. '100' will be released on 26th August 2016 and you can pre-order it now. There are also tickets available for their upcoming tour this year to showcase their brilliant new album!

Additionally, I am holding a competition again to WIN one of these signed photographs of THE HUNNA.

To enter, all you need to do is follow me and THE HUNNA on Twitter ( @OneUniqueBlog and @THEHUNNABAND ), RT any tweet I've put out about this competition using the hashtag #TheHunnaIsUnique and tell me what you thing Ryan should name his baby lion cub.

Good Luck! x

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Welcome to Leicester,
is it the first time you have been to Leicester?

Ryan: First gig in
Leicester, super syked to be here, yeah!

Jermaine: City of
Champions!

All: Congratulations
to Vardy and the boys!

I understand you have
nicknames for one another are you going to tell me mine?

Ryan: The thing is
with nicknames they come naturally, it could be half way through or the end of
the interview we come up with yours. Nobody ever knows when they are going to
come.

How did your nicknames
come about then?

Ryan: Just from us
hanging out together, we are all pretty wacky, we have more than one for each
other.

It will get to the stage where
one will lead to another. We all love them to be fair, if there’s something we
are not feeling it just gets dropped.

I mean one day Jermaine can be Prince, because he’s from
Turkey and he looks like Prince that’s how it started.

The ones we’ve signed today are our solid names!

You have recently
performed at BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend and a few other festivals, have you had
any good feedback?

Dan: Everyone told
us that we were the best on the introducing stage.

Ryan: We reached a
lot more people, I mean we were walking around and people were stopping us to
tell us how good we were. So that was amazing.

Ryan: We also did
the Dot to Dot festival, Nottingham was one of the better ones, it was packed
out, there were like two thousand people which was amazing.

Yeah it’s been a
crazy tour, it’s the biggest UK tour we have ever done. It’s been mental.

Are you all excited
for America?

Ryan: So excited
for America, me and Jermaine have never been and have always wanted to go. New
York, LA have sold out. We have got some cool stuff with our label out there
that we are excited to meet a bit more and chill with them.

Jack: Chicago pool
party!

When you get back to
the UK, you have your new album coming out!

Ryan: Yeah, there’s
going to be a festival in Reading and Leeds and some other shows leading up to
the album coming out.

A couple of your
influences are Drake and Kings of Leon, you have mentioned you have met Craig
David, have you met any more of your musical influences?

Jack: We met Brian
May from Queen, he was a big influence. Spoke to Wiley on the phone.

Ryan: I am hoping
that we meet Kings of Leon that would be amazing!

So when your album is
released on 26 August this year, are you going to be celebrating in any way?

Ryan: We are
definitely going to have an album wrap party, the day after it comes out we
will be playing Reading and Leeds so I guess we are going to party up there as
well.

Then we have the album UK tour as well.

You come across as
quite confident and relaxed, you ever get stage fright before you go out there?

Dan: Sometime we
get nervous, the five minutes here and there.

Ryan: A little bit
of nerves is good, it helps to boost you.

We just love playing on stage, because we have been playing
so long and played shows back to back it just gets normal.

You kind of don’t
think about it that much, you just go and do it.

We are still getting used to playing sold out shows, the
bigger the stage it does, I mean the Electric Ballroom was definitely a step up
and we got nerves on that one but once you step out there you are okay.

Where would you like
to play most?

Ryan: I really
want to do Coachella.

Jack: Jools
Holland, Glastonbury.

Dan: Super bowl.

All: Oooh, yeah! The
Super bowl!

Jack: Madison
Square Gardens.

Jermaine: Hyde Park.

I have some questions
from a few fans I have been in contact with. @katyhham asked, what
would your lives be like if you weren’t in the band?

Jack: A lot
different!

Ryan: I honestly don’t know.

Jack: Would we even know each other?

Ryan: Yeah, I knew Dan and Jermaine. I don’t know I
have always wanted to do this so it’s been the focus.

Do you not have any
other hobbies then?

Dan: No not really.

Jack: Yeah fashion, I used to work at ASOS for five years.

Ryan: We have done press and some management of bands. But it’s
always been the goal to be on

stage ourselves. We met when we were 16 years old, there was never really any
Plan B’s.

Dan: I’ve had that
before, people ask you so what do you want to do? And you say I want to be in a
band. They say, No seriously, what do
you really want to do?

Ryan: If you keep
yourself positive and around positive people then you will do it. We got told
by tutors in college that we were the worst people, you’ll never make it. But
we are still here!

@CarleeJane97 asked, do
you have any plans to travel to Australia any time soon?

Ryan: Yes we do,
potentially next year! We hope be going to Australia, Japan and stuff. It
hasn’t been confirmed yet, but that’s the next step to get THE HUNNA word over
there.

(Below: Audio - THE HUNNA You& Me)

Who came up with the
name The HUNNA?

Jack: We all did!

Jermaine: We were
saying one hunna, like 100 percent. We
were at a house party and it was on our way home, it kind of just formed there
in the conversation.

Dan: I didn’t
think any of us thought we would be in a band called ‘The’ something, but then
it just worked.

I had to look up that
there was not such a thing called THE HUNNA Tree!

Jack: It is
officially there but not online yet!

We will make a tree! It’s gonna go down in history. In the
video (You & Me) that is THE HUNNA Tree!

Dan: It’s our
family tree.

Ryan: Hopefully we
can make it officially ours one day. We can get a Gold plaque put on it. It
will be christened, THE HUNNA tree forever!

@miaydwi
@CondorasDrum and @BRUMMYBWS asked:-What is it like when you go out and meet
people that like everything you do?

Jack: Mental!

Ryan: It’s
amazing, it’s so much fun. It’s our dream, we have always wanted to have people
listen to our music, come see us play and love it.

Jermaine: For us it’s
just nice to around so much positive energy when we play, to finally be able to
have that.

Ryan: That’s how
we felt about our favourite bands and artists. The fact that we are now doing
that is a blessing.

All the fans are so funny as well. We give everyone the same
amount of time that we can, without them we would not be here!

We should do meet and greets, get everyone to go to The
Hunna Tree!

Jack: But you got
to take your shoes off!

Whilst on the road,
do you get a lot of time to watch TV, what is your favourite thing to watch at
the moment?

Jermaine: We
don’t, any time we get we try to sleep.

Dan: We like
Horror films, we watched The Conjuring the other day.

Are you a fan of The
Walking Dead or anything like that?

Dan: I love The
Walking Dead, I can’t wait for Series Seven!

Ryan: There’s just
no time to stick to or watch anything, But in America we should be able to
watch some, it’s going to be a big tour bus that has beds and stuff.

Jack: We also miss
FIFA on the Xbox.

Dan: We have got
DVD screens in our car now. We watched Lawless and the Love Guru the other day.

Ryan: We are
massive film fans but at the minute we are so out of the loop.

Dan: We have no
idea what’s happened in the news lately! I mean what’s actually going on in the
world at the moment?

Jermaine: The Euro
is starting soon though, Its England Saturday but we will be in Philadelphia,
we might be able to watch it on the bus!

You are on the road a
lot, are you living off takeaways?

Dan & Jermaine:
It’s mainly Burger Kings! So, So many Burger Kings! Oh and Costa, as well as
deliveries.

Ryan: It’s bad as
every hotel that we stay at, around it is a Burger King, McDonalds, KFC at
times you just have to get it, and you’ve got to eat!

We have tried to be good though, the first tour it was all
of that but this tour we have tried to switch it up a bit. We have been to a
few Waitrose’s.

There’s a lot of stuff that’s bad for you, it’s all the
stuff you like!

I have had a lot of Caesar Salads!

Jack: In America
we are going to eat like Kings!

Dan: We have got
$500 each from Taco Bell for the tour.

$500? Wow, you’ll be
loving that! If you had the chance to star on a celebrity talk show, which one
would you choose?